10 things we’d like to see Tim Cook do in his next year at Apple

What's a little dreaming among the Ars staff?

It's officially the anniversary of the day Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple and let Tim Cook take the reins. Yesterday, we gave you the five biggest things Apple has done since Cook took over last year, but his tenure has only just begun. So we put together a wish list of what we'd like to see Cook do in his second year—or five—as CEO of Apple. Some of the suggestions are admittedly more likely to happen than others, but with a new CEO at the helm who works differently than Jobs, we can't help but dream a little.

Without further ado, here's the Ars staff's wish list for Apple's second year under Tim Cook.

10. License OS X

We've all heard this one before. And although it's probably the least likely of the items on this list, it still remains in the fantasies of many users. But it doesn't have to be like a recreation of what happened in the '90s when Apple tried to license out the Mac OS last time—Ars contributor Chris Lee thinks a limited license for OS X on OEM would help to keep things in check while allowing professional users more freedom.

"If Apple took the same walled garden approach that it is doing with software, it could keep the Mac Pro alive, while reducing the overhead associated with the hardware development. It would also give professionals a reason to stay with the Mac," says Lee. "I know that many would see licensed sales as cannibalizing Mac sales, but, if Apple isn't interested in making a Mac Pro anymore, and it writes the license terms such that it gets to vet what is sold with an OS X license, then it would do very well, I think."

9. Bring some manufacturing jobs back to the US

You know all that hubbub over Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn? Some of those problems with working conditions and human labor might be better addressed if manufacturing wasn't handled entirely overseas by companies following (or not following) different laws. Social Editor Cesar Torres thinks even a token effort would be better than nothing.

"I'd like for Tim Cook to shift a small set of manufacturing jobs for Apple's hardware back to the US. We know that building a whole Apple product in the United States will never be cost-effective for Apple or consumers, but it would be nice if some more select parts could be made here," says Torres. "That way, Apple could keep its focus on high-quality components, and give a boost to the economy by providing it with a financial and psychological boost. Would this be just a symbolic move? Perhaps, but it could set a nice precedent in this current economic slowdown."

8. Invest in an independent research lab

Wouldn't it be cool if Apple used some of its giant cash pile to fund an independent research and development center that benefits the public good? We're thinking something like the level of R&D that goes into the iPhone, but not just for Apple to make use of in order to add to that cash pile. At least that's what Science Editor John Timmer wishes for.

"Use the pile of cash to open something like Xerox PARC," asserts Timmer. "Put aside a permanent endowment so it never has to be at the whims of corporate cost cutting. Recognize that the company wouldn't be there without it, and take the risk that some other company will eventually capitalize on the work done there."

7. More transparency on OS X and Mac plans

When Tim Cook told the world that "something really great" was coming for Mac Pro users in 2013, it marked the first time in recent history in which Apple actually hinted at anything relating to its future hardware plans. That's in addition to the advance notice given ahead of last year's WWDC that Cupertino was going to talk about iCloud and iOS 5—another freakishly rare acknowledgement from the company. Ars contributor Dave Girard likes where this is going, and wants to see even more of it for the sake of professional users on the Mac.

"I'd like to see less secrecy for the Mac Pro and OS X plans from now on. The smartest thing that Tim Cook did recently, from my standpoint, was break his vow of secrecy to say that there was a new Mac Pro coming in 2013. Otherwise, there would be a conga line of pundits crying 'the Mac Pro is dead' until sometime in 2013—and who could say it wasn't, since that's how it would have looked? Secrecy is very important in the crazy competitive world of phones, but the Mac Pro users, as well as developers like Autodesk, need clear commitments to make plans," says Girard.

"I've seen other developers like Onyx Tree drop their Mac products because Apple doesn't provide any plans that reassure developers they will have the tools they need to make their apps for OS X. Apple needs to figure out which features of OS X or the Mac Pro are secrets worth keeping (GUI, design aspects, etc.) and which are best made public knowledge to keep developers and users happy, and give developers that knowledge as early as possible, because they plan product timelines years in advance. Apple's commitment to pros can't just be a redesign of the Mac Pro—they need to do this."

6. Make the Apple TV more than a hobby

The Apple TV is actually selling relatively well—Apple recently said it sold 4 million of the set-top boxes during fiscal 2012, and that was with one quarter left to go. (The company said it sold 1.3 million during the third quarter alone.) That's not iPhone-level sales, but it's roughly the same as Xbox 360 sales during the same period. So what's up with the "hobby" status? Creative Director Aurich Lawson thinks it's time to shed the hobby moniker and go all out on the TV market.

"My wish would be for Apple TV to become a more serious product. By that I mean that it would cross over more aggressively with the iOS ecosystem and leverage the availability of apps. Easy example: HBO Go. It's on the iPhone and iPad, but not Apple TV," Lawson argues. "Now there might be some licensing issues (see lack of AirPlay for the app on said devices) but it's available right now on Roku boxes, Samsung TVs, and Xbox 360, so it's pretty obvious that the whole 'hooked up directly to a TV' thing isn't an insurmountable obstacle. I would guess the app is already 90 percent written, it just needs a little remote-friendly UI polish. Why haven't we seen that? Companies scramble to make iOS apps, but the Apple TV getting more content sources is an afterthought. Look how long it took for Hulu to come over."

5. Offer streaming, subscription music

It has long been rumored that Apple has been working on offering a streaming music subscription along the lines of what Lala used to offer (before Apple bought it, of course). But we have yet to see anything like that come to fruition, despite the recent launch of iTunes Match. iTunes Match is still highly dependent upon your purchasing downloads from the iTunes Store, whereas the new hotness when it comes to online music has largely been in the hands of companies like Spotify and Rdio.

So why isn't Apple staying up-to-date with what the kids like these days? Senior Business Editor Cyrus Farivar believes Apple hasn't even begun to capitalize on the technology or talent the company acquired when it bought Lala. He wants to see the company take a leap of faith with its iTunes music products and launch something similar to what Rdio currently offers, but with that signature Apple twist.

4. Inject some steroids into the Mac line

Sure, Apple makes updates to (some of) its Macs all the time, but in recent years, many of those changes have focused on reducing size and weight with moderate performance increases. Ars contributor John Siracusa thinks it's time for Apple to chest-thump again when it comes to the performance of its Macs, which would benefit not only Mac users, but also Apple's legions of iPad and iPhone users.

"Tim Cook needs to revitalize the desktop Mac product line," says Siracusa. "The shift to mobile and laptops has brought absolute performance increases in the Mac product line to a near-standstill in the past few years. Many believe that computers are far from 'fast enough.' In the same way that car makers create flagship super-cars or racing teams, with the technology slowly trickling down to their everyday products, Apple needs to resume pushing the performance envelope at the top end."

3. Diversify the iOS product line

Apple likes to keep things simple when it comes to its product lineup, but sometimes things can be a little too simple. There's currently one size of iPad (in several different storage size configurations), for example, and it took years for the iPhone to be available from any other carrier in the US besides AT&T. As evidenced by an internal Apple survey conducted in 2011, a fair number of people who bought Android devices did so because they didn't want to leave their current wireless providers just because of the iPhone, not to mention a wider variety of screen sizes. Apple has already seen some wild success with the iPhone and iPad, but what if the company added more options to its entire iOS product line in order to really rake in the cash?

That's what Siracusa wants to see, too. "Tim Cook needs to diversify the iOS product line in both directions, high- and low-end. The Mac never dominated the PC market, but the iPod did (and does) dominate the music player market," he says. "The iPod started as a $500 Mac-only curiosity but expanded to a market-spanning range of products from a $40 iPod shuffle to a $300 iPod touch. Domination requires diversity, and iOS stands a chance of dominating the mobile market. The iPhone eventually expanded to Verizon, but it was a long time in coming. Apple needs to move faster."

2. Make a larger commitment to OS security

Apple has been taking a bit of a beating lately when it comes to the security of OS X, partly because the company used to openly brag about its magical malware repelling abilities. The MAC Defender outbreak, followed by the much bigger Flashback scare, has opened the door for plenty of criticism from security researchers. Apple's slowness in patching the Java vulnerability that enabled the spread of Flashback didn't help, either. That's why Security Editor Dan Goodin thinks it's time for Apple to double down and get serious about security, and he's not just talking about Mountain Lion's new Gatekeeper feature.

"A lot of security people really want to see Tim Cook start a software development life cycle that's similar to what Microsoft and Adobe have. A comprehensive program that builds security in to each product from the very beginning," Goodin argues. "It should also involve a formalized response mechanism to quickly react to keep customers safe when security vulnerabilities or attacks are discovered.

"Over the years, Apple has steadfastly refused to publicly discuss security at all. Tim Cook would be doing his customers a big favor if he adopted the kind of SDLC program that Microsoft and Adobe currently have."

1. Cater to power users again

When I asked the Ars staff for their Tim Cook wish lists, this was by far the most commonly requested item. "Power" and professional users just feel ignored by Apple, and they'd really like to see that change in the coming year. As we mentioned earlier, Cook did throw power users a bone when he hinted that Mac Pro updates were on the way, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. People who are interested in some heavy-duty hardware want to buy Macs and iOS devices too.

"Whether it's OS X, iOS, or just about any other product that Apple sells, their strength is also a weakness," says Ars Editor-in-Chief Ken Fisher. "By catering so heavily to everyday users, power users are sometimes left feeling like an afterthought in the Apple universe. To this day, power users lack features that are readily available in competing products. For instance, having one's phone on a timer, more custom power options for a phone or computer, or customizations to the user interface would all be a great start."

Ars contributor Iljitsch van Beijnum agrees wholeheartedly.

"After 'back to the Mac,' it's time to go 'back to the Unix power user.' In the early 2000s, many power users switched from other platforms—especially Unixy ones—to the Mac," says van Beijnum. "Here, they found a beautiful, simple, and fast graphical user interface on top of powerful Unix underpinnings, with AppleScript and the like to make software from different developers work together to get things done efficiently.

"Since then, Apple has been courting less tech-savvy users with much effect. And that's great. Simplifying the user experience where there are unneeded complications is also good for power users. But these days, Apple seems to be ignoring power users (see the state of the server product and the Mac Pro), and is getting perilously close to pushing them away by crossing the line between making OS X simpler and making it dumber. We want to tinker! We want to customize!"

Promoted Comments

Re. the power user stuff (10, 7, 4, 1). [...] Apple isn't a tech company, it's a mass-market brand. Its goal is to project a very specific mass-market image, and shift a ton of mass-market product (hardware, software, content, services). Anything that doesn't feed directly into that - like chasing narrow vertical markets - is a dilution of resources at minimum and a dilution of image at worst.

Re: item #4 - everything you wrote about Apple is also true of Honda, which spent a year or two in F1 and advertised this in the most recent Super Bowl.

Lots of people aspire to owning a grunty automobile. Very few aspire to owning a grunty Mac Pro.

Setting that aside (though I don't think it's true; look at all the "power"-focused ads for stuff like the Droid phone, even—a phone!), the more important aspect is how technology developed on the high end trickles down to consumer products. Examples in the car world are all over: anti-lock brakes, traction control, airbags, automated manual transmissions, run-flat tires, variable valve timing and lift, stability control, active suspension, and on and on.

The same thing works in the computer world. Say some new API needs 24 cores to be worthwhile. A high-end Mac can have 24 cores, and that API can be developed and polished on that platform in high-end apps for pros. Eventually, phones can have 24 cores and that API is mature and ready to go. That's basically what happened to OpenGL, which initially only ran on high-end workstations, but is now on your phone.

High-end products are not (just) a prestige and aspirational marketing ploy. Companies get real, tangible, far-reaching value from those efforts. If they did not, prestige and marketing alone would not justify the price tag for things like Honda's F1 efforts and niche cars like the NSX.

Now, you may say that Apple can get those benefits without doing that high-end work itself. Apple didn't sell $20,000 OpenGL workstations in the 90s, but it still benefits from having a mature API available for doing 3D on its phones today. But when a company invests in the high end itself, it has two big advantages over letting others do it.

First, it gains extremely valuable expertise in this new thing. If you wait to adopt a formerly high-end tech until it's ready for consumer devices, you are already behind all the other companies that have been working with it for years on the high end. That means your initial efforts with the tech may be pretty crappy—witness OpenGL in Mac OS X up to, well, about last year.

Second, and even more importantly, when you are the one to develop the tech on the high end, you can tailor it to your own specific needs. For example, you can design it with your own eventual use of it in your consumer products in mind. You can make sure it works great on the hardware you plan to deploy it on. You can choose the features and priorities that make sense for your business.

This is true even if you're not developing it alone. Apple's participation in things like the Thunderbolt standard and Intel's CPU/GPU efforts is a way to ensure that this tech will be suitable for Apple's products—all of them, not just the expensive models that it might first be deployed on.

Larrabee was another example, albeit one that didn't pan out. But Apple was in on that, and reportedly working hard on a high-end Mac incorporating the technology. Had it been a hit, Apple would have been ready with its Larra-Mac Pro, and would have had the drivers and OS support ready when it finally became feasible on its iPads, iPhones, etc. (again, assuming Larrabee had actually worked the way Intel hoped).

Yes, the high end is a risky market. The margins can be big, but the volume is always small. But that doesn't mean it's the right decision to ignore it, ceding the entire market to others. That's actually a terrible decision in most cases. Thus item number 4 on the list in this article.

3772 posts | registered Feb 19, 1999

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui